Starting Your Internet Business Right

If you’re going to own
a Home-based Internet Business, selling Products on the Internet, you have to find
products to sell.

That’s pretty basic,
right? You can’t sell products if you don’t have any.

Now, let’s assume that
you’re going to (properly!) ignore all the hucksters and snake-oil salesmen out
there who promise you overnight riches on late-night TV Infomercials. Let’s
assume that you know better than to fall for the “instant business in a box”
web sites that squeal and prance at you from all corners of the Internet.

Never mind driving around to Garage Sales, picking up knick-knacks
for a dollar, and selling them for twenty bucks on eBay.

That’s OK, but it takes way more of your time than it’s
worth. Only one person in a million really makes a living doing that.
Forget about inventing a better mouse trap, making it in your garage, and
earning a fortune selling it on your Internet Store. That
only sounds good when the TV Guy from the Acme Invention Patent Company wants
to sell you an “Inventor’s Kit” that will make you rich. It sounds good,
but again, it’s one in a million.

If you’re going to have yourself a real, live,
honest-to-goodness successful Home-based Internet business, whether you
sell on an Internet Store or you sell on eBay, you need to learn
what Product Sourcing is.
This is a very important term, folks, so write it down, tack it up on the
fridge, do whatever it takes to remember it. Like the Supply
Line of an Army fighting far from home, your Product Sourcing is the lifeblood
of your Online Business.

What is Product
Sourcing?
Product Sourcing is the act of finding Sources of Products to sell.
If you’re going to sell Products on the Internet, you need a steady,
continuous Source of those Products. You need to be sure that you can buy
those Products at a genuine Wholesale Price, so that you can make a
Profit when you sell them to your
customers at your Retail Price.
That means that you have to find legitimate Wholesale Product Suppliers
that will work with a Home-based Internet Business.
This is not as easy as it sounds.

Most
real Wholesale Suppliers will not work with you.

It's unfortunate, but true. Most of the real Wholesale
Suppliers out there do not want to sell products to small, Home-based Internet
Businesses. Why? Because as small businesses, we don't have the money to order thousands
of dollars’ worth of products at one time.

You
see, a Wholesale Supplier's business is based on volume sales. They
don't make very much of a profit on the products they Wholesale. That means
that they have to sell a lot of product in order to make money. So, a
Wholesale Supplier's main business is selling truckloads of products to large
retail chains, like Sears, Target, Kmart, etc. They simply won't sell to anyone
who can't afford to place a minimum order ranging from $5,000 to $25,000
or so. They don't consider it to be worth their effort!

That’s
why most Internet Lists of Wholesalers are useless.

You've seen them
all over the Internet. Lists and "trade directories" claiming to
contain thousands of names of wholesale suppliers from the US, Mexico,
Hong Kong, Asia, the Philippines, etc.

Well,
some of those lists actually do contain thousands of names of wholesalers
from those places.

So,
what's the problem? Well, there are actually several problems.

·Those
printed lists and "trade directories" are so rarely updated that huge
numbers of those companies listed aren't even in business anymore.

·Those
so-called 'wholesalers' in those printed lists and "trade
directories" are not properly researched and verified! They are jam-packed
with Middlemen who will charge you too much for your products.

·Most
of the suppliers listed in those printed lists and "trade
directories" who are still in business will not work with small,
Home-based Internet Business Owners. Why? Because as small business owners, we
can't afford to spend thousands of dollars each time we order! They
require high minimum orders that make it impossible to deal with them on a
small scale.

Now,
here’s another little roadblock for you (aren’t you lucky!):

Most real Wholesalers you
find in the Search Engines will not work well for you!

There
are, as I said, a ton of fake wholesalers and middlemen advertised in
the Search Engines. We’ll talk about why they’re fake in a later Chapter.
For now, though, it’s important to realize that even in the RARE CASE
when you find a Real Wholesaler in a Search Engine, even they can be
bad for your business.

Why?

When
real wholesale companies venture out onto the Internet, even with the best of
intentions, they sometimes go too far.

When a
wholesaler gets too well known on the Internet, they get overexposed to millions
of people. That means that you get far too many other Internet
Sellers like yourself using them. That creates too much competition for their
products for anyone to make a decent profit.

But
there’s another issue. When Wholesale Suppliers get over-enthusiastic on the
Net, they start offering extras to their wholesale customers, like Internet
Stores built into their wholesale programs. You may have seen them; Wholesalers
that want to sell you a specialized Web Site that contains their Products.
There are a couple of problems with that as well.

First, most Wholesale Suppliers know little to nothing
about creating and running a Home-based Internet Business. That’s not what they
do. These are Wholesale Suppliers, they are not Ecommerce experts! They don’t
have the in-house expertise to create these kinds of programs. That doesn’t
stop them, though. They try to do it themselves anyway. So, the integrated
Ecommerce solutions they offer on their sites are rarely successful ones,
because they’re either making this stuff up as they go along, or they’re
copying it from someone else who may not know what they’re doing either.

So, the Wholesale Suppliers who do this are trying to
expand their sales by making it as easy as possible to sell their products
online, but because they’re not Ecommerce experts, they end up actually making
things harder for their customers.

The second problem is that they have to spend money
creating these little instant-business programs. They have to dedicate a couple
of employees to run the show. They have to pay for that somehow, and where do
you think they make that money from?

They
raise their wholesale prices.

Most of
these wholesale companies who are also ECommerce solution wannabes have two
completely different price schedules. A lower price schedule for their core
wholesale business, which is selling loads of wholesale products to large
physical stores. Then a higher price structure for their sales to Internet
businesses, because they have to make back the money they spend to develop and
maintain these ECommerce business extras of theirs.

Of course, there are also several real wholesalers advertising on the
Net that don’t offer these extra Internet Store programs. What about them?

Well,
they are a better bet, but they still have part of that same problem.

When a
Wholesale Supplier tries to create a widespread internet presence for
themselves, they still have to pay someone in-house to manage all that search
engine positioning and Pay Per Click advertising. It costs them money to
make themselves well-known on the Internet.

As a
business, they have to make that money back. Income has to be greater than
expenses in any business.

Wholesale Suppliers typically operate on a pretty thin
profit margin, so they’re not going to make that money back easily on increased
sales volume, at least not at first. Pay Per Click advertising in the Home
Business market is expensive! So, once again, they raise their wholesale
prices to Internet sellers, to compensate for those costs.

In general, a wholesaler that can easily be found on
the Internet has to charge higher prices than a wholesaler who doesn’t have
that large internet presence, because they’re spending extra money to promote
themselves on the Net.

There
are of course some exceptions, but there’s no easy way to tell who they are.

So, I’ve told you where not to
find real Wholesalers.

Where can you find them?

When you get into Product
Sourcing, you’re looking for Wholesalers who are:

·Legitimate
Wholesale
Suppliers

·Not
Overexposed

·Do
not spend a great deal of money becoming well-known on the Internet

·Do
not sell extras like Internet Store packages

That means you have to go to the Source
(no pun intended!)

If I wanted to sell Kodak Cameras, for example, I’d go
right to the top. I would call Kodak’s Corporate Headquarters in Rochester, New
York, and ask for the Sales Department.

I’d tell
their Sales Department that I own a retail business, and I want to sell some of
Kodak’s products. I’d ask them for a short list of their wholesale distributors
in the US. They have that information, and should be willing to give it to me.
In fact, they’ll probably ask me where my business is located, and give me the
name of a regional sales director that who I need to contact.

Then, I would call the Wholesale Suppliers they give
me, and ask if they’ll sell to my Internet business at Wholesale. That’s the
way you find real wholesalers that who aren’t completely exposed to the
entire Internet, and that gives you an edge in both your profit margin and your
competition.

Of course, you still have to get through the issue of
whether they will sell to a small Home-based Internet Business. Most of them
won’t, so this Research takes a great deal of time, but it is very important
to your business that you do it right!

This is
the kind of Research that we at Worldwide Brands, Inc., have been doing
non-stop for five 11 years now.

This is
exactly how we have built the world's best, most trusted Directory of Wholesale Suppliers.

This EBook is not designed to be a commercial for my
company, but it’s important for you to know that our Team has already spent 11
years Researching tens of thousands of Wholesale Suppliers for
just this kind of information. We’re known all over the world as the Internet’s
leading Product Sourcing Experts for Home-based Internet Businesses like yours.

There are already thousands of pre-qualified Wholesale Suppliers listed in our Online Directory that havealready agreed to sell to
Home-based Internet Businesses like yours at real Wholesale Prices without charging those high minimum orders. The Directory of
WBI CertifiedTM Wholesalers represents millions of products that you can sell on your Auctions or Web Sites.

When you deal with Product Sourcing, you are looking
for LEGITIMATE Drop Shippers, Light Bulk Wholesalers, Large Volume
Wholesalers, Liquidators and Importers who WILL work with small home-based
businesses.

Using Multiple Sourcing Methods
(this is REALLY important, so read it twice if you need
to!)

No SINGLE Product Sourcing method will
make you truly successful. Using only one Sourcing method is like driving a car
with only one wheel. Four wheels works much better...

·Drop Shipping works well, but has its limits,
which include slimmer profit margins and occasional delivery problems. Drop
Shipping should be a part of your Product Sourcing, but not all
of it. It remains, however, a low cost entry point to selling on line and it
can be used to test the market for such products to see if it will be
successful to purchase in quantity to sell on line.

·Bulk
Wholesaling works
well, but most wholesalers have very high minimum orders. Supplementing your
Product Sourcing with Light Bulk (low minimum order) wholesalers should be a
part of your Sourcing efforts.

·General
Wholesaling works
well as an expansion tool. When your Drop Shipping and Light Bulk
Sourcing identifies products that sell well, you work with General Wholesalers
to get larger quantities of those products at better pricing, and increase your
profit margin. When used properly, it is a part of the whole.

·Liquidation /
Overstock Sourcing
works well, but it's not a renewable source. Once a liquidation lot is
gone, it's gone. If you find a product that sells well, you'll run out of them
sooner or later. That's why you need other sourcing methods; so you can find
renewable Sources of those products once you identify them.

·Importing works well, but it's very expensive
to bring products into your country from overseas on your own. Finding
Importers who have already brought the products in is very important
here. You can use case lots of imported goods to supplement your existing
steady stream of regular products.

Successful Product Sourcing is the art of using a combination
of Tools and Sources to find the right
balance of Product Sources for your EBiz.

Here's an example of an actual customer of my company, Worldwide Brands. Not his real
name, but he's typical of our customers who know enough to use Multiple Product
Sourcing Methods:

·Jay
Smith has a Home EBiz. He sells Camping Gear online, VERY successfully. Jay
has a very wide range of Camping Products on his web site. Where do they all
come from?

·Some
of Jay's Product Sources were found by searching the WorldwideBrands.com Directory of Wholesalers for Drop Shippers. Jay has those products Drop
Shipped directly to his Customers, and never has to buy them up front, or
handle them himself. This allows him to have a very large number of products
listed on his site at no inventory cost to him. Having all those products on
his site makes him look like a much bigger business than he really is. This
helps his Customer feel like they are buying from a real professional, and his
sales rise.

·Jay
then used the Directory of Wholesalers to locate Light Bulk Wholesalers of
a few of his best-selling Camping Products. He buys them in less
expensive Light Bulk quantities and ships those few products himself, gaining a
higher profit margin on those particular products.

·There
were a few particular inexpensive accessory items that Jay wanted to carry in
bulk, knowing that they would not cost him much for large quantities. He used the Directory of Wholesalers to locate a Large Volume Wholesaler to supply that
need for him in larger quantities at even lower Wholesale prices.

·Being
a smart retailer, Jay wanted to advertise some very low-cost "Special
Offers" to bring customers into his online store, so that he could then
show them his more expensive products. This is called using a "Loss
Leader". So, Jay found a Liquidation Supplier in the Directory of Wholesalers that allows him to buy products at lower-than-wholesale prices, and
offer them to his customers for pennies on the dollar, to get their attention.

·Jay
also wanted to be able to offer the "Hot List" products that so many
people sell successfully. He found those Hot List products available through the Directory of Wholesalers Instant Wholesale Buys from Importers.

Using a
combination of Product Sourcing Methods allows Jay to balance his Product
Sourcing for maximum possible profit!

Product Sourcing is not a cut-and-dried
cut-and-dry process. It is part
inspiration, part art form, and always based on reliable information.

The
really successful Online and
other Retail Business around the world ALL use a combination of
Multiple Product Sourcing Methods.